noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The contraction of a word by means of loss or omission of sounds or syllables in the middle thereof. uncountable, usually
2. 2
   music (especially dance music) that has a syncopated rhythm wordnet
3. 3
   The quality of a rhythm being somehow unexpected, in that it deviates from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak beats in a meter. uncountable, usually
4. 4
   a musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat wordnet
5. 5
   (phonology) the loss of sounds from within a word (as in ‘fo'c'sle’ for ‘forecastle’) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

syncopeacid rockandanteandante tempoavant-garde jazzballroom music

Example

More examples

"Jazz makes heavy use of syncopation."

Etymology

From syncopate + -ion. The phonological sense was first attested in English in the 1530's, the musical sense in the 1590's.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.